Finding Alex - 12. Chapter 12

Sacha was feeling relaxed and happy. They’d moved from the music room to the Jacuzzi and then to the pool where Lacey had started to show him the mechanics of swimming. He’d gone under the water, which he likes a lot because it was so quiet and strange, like a whole different world. Then he’d held the wall and kicked his legs for a bit. He liked that, too, but he’d tired quickly, so they hadn’t gone any further. He was excited about doing more tomorrow.

Now, they were just sitting in the shallow end, with water up to their waists, bobbing in the waves Lacey had made and listening to the rain. For the first time, the gnawing fear had left him and he was utterly content, in a way he never had been before.

“So, there you are,” a voice said, startling him. “I’ve been looking all over.” Sacha opened his eyes to see a boy standing on the edge of the pool. He was dressed casually in jeans and t-shirt but they were clearly expensive, as was the gold watch on his wrist. Even his messy blonde hair looked as if it had been expensively styled in a fancy salon.

“James,” Lacey cried and surged out of the pool to hug her little brother. “What are you doing home? You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

“Got a lift with Bucky. Couldn’t wait. Aren’t you pleased to see me?”

“And why wouldn’t I be pleased to see my baby bro?”

“Get off me will you,” James said, laughing as Lacey hugged him. “You’re wetting me.” James fended her off as she flicked her wet hair at him. “Leave it out, will you, or I’ll bitch slap you.”

“You can try, brat.”

Sacha watched the easy banter and felt sad. Would he ever feel secure enough with any other person to be like that? Maybe Lacey.

“So, where’s this whore who claims to be our brother?”

“James.” Lacey sounded realy shocked. “Don’t say things like that, especially not in front of Sacha.”

“Who the hell is Sacha?” James flicked uninterested eyes at Sacha, with a look that grew more interested as his eyes roved over Sacha’s face and what little of his body as was visible above the water. Sacha shivered. He’d seen that look before and it made him feel sick. He didn’t know what to do, so he lowered his eyes and did nothing.

“You know very well who Sacha is,” Lacey said, crossly, “so stop being a brat and say hello properly.”

James frowned. “I don’t Lace, honest. I….” Sacha felt James’ eyes burn into him, but didn’t look up. “She does look kind of familiar. Is she one of your friends? I’d be surprised if I forgot a fox like that.”

Sacha’s cheeks burned and he seriously considered sinking under the water. He was pretty sure he’d make steam.

“James, stop it. Are you deliberately trying to be a complete dick, or it is coming naturally these days?”

“No, honest, Lacey. I’m not being a dick, at least I’m not trying to be. What have I said? Is it what I said about Alex?”

“James, stop it.”

“What?”

“Oh my God.” Lacey suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth. “He hasn’t told you, has he?”

“Who hasn’t told me what?”

“He’s Alex, James. Sacha is Alex. They changed his name.”

James laughed. “Riight. That’s Alex. He’s had a sex change as well, has he? Pull the other one.” Slowly James’ smile faded as he looked first into Lacey’s face, then Sacha’s.

“Fucking hell.”

“James! Cut it out. Dad will kill you if he hears you swearing.”

“Dad’s not here.” He sounded stunned and his eyes were fixed on Sacha, filled with confusion and a shocked expression. “Seriously, Lacey? Seriously, that’s Alex?”

“Sacha.”

“Whatever. That’s him?”

“Yes,” Lacey turned. “Come here, Sacha. Come say hello to James, your bratty little brother.” Lacey smiled warmly when he hesitated. “Don’t worry; he’s not as bit a brat as he seems.”

Slowly, his eyes down, avoiding James’ burning gaze, Sacha stood up and climbed out of the pool. James said nothing and Sacha dared no look up. He moved as close to Lacey as he could, seeking reassurance. She put an arm around his shoulders. “Be nice, James,” she said, a serous warning in her voice.

“Be nice? To that? What’s it supposed to be, anyway? A transsexual midget?”

“James! Don’t say things lke that. Sacha can’t help what he looks like. He can’t help what was done to him.”

“What was done to him? Oh, I can imagine what was done to him. He’s a whore after all.”

“He is not a whore, James. Don’t you dare use words like that in this house.”

“It’s what you’re all thinking isn’t it? God. I bet Dad regrets all the time and effort he put in looking for that.”

“James! Stop it! Sacha’s your brother, show him some respect.”

“Brother? He looks more like my sister. What’s with the hair?”

“What’s wrong with his hair?”

“It’s…long.”

“Yeah, and they all wear it in braids like that? Face it, Lacey, he’s flaming. A total femme twink whore. How can you bear to go in the water with him? He’s probably got diseases.”

“That’s enough, James. If I hear you say things like that again, I’ll tell Dad.”

“That’s right; run to Dad. Give me yet another black mark against my name. I already have enough of those, thank to him.”

There was so much venom in the last word, Sacha almost fled, but he made himself stay. James was his brother and he’/d have to find a way to get him to like him. If they had to choose, it would be Sacha sent away, not James, and he didn’t want that. He really didn’t want that. He was starting to like being part of a family.

“I…I’m sorry,” he said. “I…I…didn’t know. I…didn’t mean for anything bad to happen because of me. I…I’ll try to make it better. I want to be friends.”

“Christ, he even talks like a girl. Friends? Do you seriously think I’d ever have a friend like you? God, Lacey, you can’t show him to anyone else. If word gets around I have a brother like him. I’ll be a laughing stock.”

“James, stop being so cruel. At least try to get to know him. He’s your brother and nothing can change that.”

James stared at Sacha, then a sly expression crept over his face. “Okay. Okay, let’s get to know you. Show me what you can do, little whore. Go on. Give me your best. Right now.”

“James!” Lacey’s cry was outraged, horrified.

Afraid he was going to cause even more trouble, and finally being on familiar ground, Sacha stepped forward eagerly.

“Okay. What do you want? How do you want me?”

“Sacha! Oh my god, No!”

Lacey grabbed his arm and pulled him back, her grip painful. James looked utterly shocked and the bottom dropped out of his world. It looked like he’d got it really wrong this time. But how?

Lacey turned him around to face her and he cringed away from the look on her face.

“Sacha, you can’t do that. You can’t just…do it because you’re asked, and you can never, ever, do anything like that with James, with any of us. You can’t even think it.”

“I…can’t?”

“No.” Lacey sounded mad again, outraged. With him. Sacha shrank back, his heart pounding so hard he thought it would break out of his chest. Things had gone so bad so fast his head was spinning and he didn’t know what to do.

“Sacha, you can’t do…things like that with your family. It’s…. You just can’t. It’s wrong. It’s not even legal. It’s…you just don’t”

“It’s sick,” James said, “disgusting.”

Sacha felt sick. His mind flicked back to the times he and one of the older boys would work together. Was that sick and disgusting? It occurred to him that just about everything he’d ever done was sick and disgusting. James was the only one with the courage and honesty to tell him.

Feeling his gorge rise, Sacha clamped his hand over his mouth and fled.

He didn’t stop running until he got to his room, where he threw himself onto the bed, sobbing hysterically. He was a fool; such a fool. How could he possibly ever have thought he could fit in here, find a home. Behind their warm smiles and sweet words, they were all thinking the same things. They were only doing this; only being nice to him, because they felt they had to. Because he was family. Worst of all, there was no escape. There was nowhere to go. Even the streets would be better than this, but he couldn’t get out. He was as much a prisoner now, as he ever was.

Claustrophobia gripped him. He was trapped and he had to get out. He had to get – out.

Flinging open the bedroom door, Sacha looked around wildly. They’d said he could go anywhere he wanted, but that wasn’t true. He was trapped. He couldn’t go downstairs or he’d see James and, frankly, if he never saw him again it would be too soon. If he went outside he’d be exposed, lost in a storm, with nowhere to go. He’d never get through the gate, or over the wall.

Closing his eyes, Sacha took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He wandered across the floor and opened the window that led onto the balcony. A blast of wind and rain almost knocked him off his feet. Holding tightly to the balcony, he inched out into the storm.

In a rage, the wind and rain buffeted him from all sides. Sacha felt insubstantial, as if he could let go of the rail and fly off into the wind – across the grounds, over the wall, higher and higher into the sky until he was so high no one could touch him; no one would ever be able to touch him again.

Trembling, Sacha prowled the edge of the balcony. It was so high. If he fell he’d die; simple as. His body would hit the ground and shatter. But in the meantime, in the space between leaping and landing, he’d fly.

Closing his eyes tightly, Sacha shook his head and turned back. As he took a step, his foot slipped and he fell forward onto his knees. It wasn’t a bad fall, but it shook him too his core, after what he’d been thinking of only moments before. Shaking, he crawled across the balcony to the window, then tumbled inside and closed the window behind him.

In the deep silence that ensued, a silence that was more than an absence of sound, Sacha curled on the floor and wept.

When there were no tears left, only a great empty space inside, Sacha hauled himself to his knees and crawled back to the bedroom. He felt fragile and sore.

Sitting with his back against the bed his limp fingers started toying idly with sometime soft. He looked down to find himself stroking silk. He picked up the panties and rubbed them against his cheek. They felt soft and beautiful. Maybe if he put them on he’d feel soft and beautiful.

Scrambling to his feet, Sacha spread out the clothes Lacey had given him, on the bed. He selected his favourites and slipped them on. Lacy black stockings clung to a teal suspender belt which matched the silk panties underneath. Over the top, a sheer black baby-doll edged with feathers tickled his tummy and floated around the top of his thighs. He closed his eyes and swayed, lost in the sensations of the different textures sliding over his skin.

Feeling calm and centred again, Sacha located the high heeled shoes and slipped them on. It completed the transformation, and he totally relaxed as he waltzed around the room to the music in his head, eventually coming to a stop in front of the balcony window. This time he had no desire to open them. He simply stood, staring out into the rain, until his vision shifted slightly to take in the ghostly image that gazed back at him from the glass.

Generally, Sacha liked what he saw. He twirled, twisting from one side to the other to get as comprehensive a picture as possible. He knew he was too short, but everything was perfectly proportioned. He didn’t have bulging muscles or toned abs and he was happy about that. If anything, he was a little too skinny, but he had curves where boys generally didn’t have curves, and he was happy about that, too.

Sacha ran his hands over his flat stomach and gently rounded hips. He’d never thought about the way he looked too much before. Oh, he’d thought about looking good, about making the most of what he had, but he’d never thought about what was underneath.

Sick and disgusting.

They’d done this to him. They’d made him look like a girl because that’s what they wanted. It didn’t matter what he wanted. They’d turned him into something…unnatural, and now they weren’t here anymore. What was left? Was there anything of what he really was left under what they’d made? His hands fell to his sides and the glances he cast over his body became scalding and shamed.

Boys didn’t wear satin and lace. Boys didn’t wear panties and stockings. They didn’t wear high heels. It had felt so right; so good but after what James had said he was looking at everything in a different way. There was no getting round it – he was a freak. Sacha dropped his eyes, twisting and chewing the end of his braid, as he often did when he was feeling nervous or upset.

Where did this leave him? He wasn’t Alex anymore, that much was for sure. He wasn’t Sacha anymore either, was he? He couldn’t remember anything he’d been told or taught before he was nine years old and, it appeared everything he’d been told or taught ever since was wrong. If it wasn’t a lie it was a twisted truth. He was twisted. The whole basis of his being was flawed.

The good feelings that had started when he put on the pretty clothes slipped away and left him feeling empty again, although this time the emptiness was tinged with hopelessness and self-loathing.

“Oh my God. I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it.”

Sacha’s head snapped up. James stood in the doorway, a look of utter shock on his face. Sacha wanted to shout at him, to scream at him to get out of his room, but he didn’t think he had the right. This was James’ home, not his. James had as much, if not more right to be here than he did. Running away wasn’t an option – there was nowhere to run.

“This is awesome. Does Dad know? Of course he doesn’t. He’d freak. He’d probably tear your head off and piss down your neck.”

“No. I…. Lacey….”

“I should have known she’d know. She probably gave you this stuff didn’t she?”

Sacha nodded, feeling vulnerable and exposed. His world was falling apart so fast it was giving him whiplash. James grinned nastily and took out his phone. He held it up and Sacha half expected a lazer to shoot out and decapitate him.

“Nice.” James said smugly, then the smile dropped away and a nasty expression came into his eyes. He crossed the floor until he was looming over Sacha, who cringed back. “I’ve got a nice photo of you, Sacha, wanna see?”

James held out his phone and Sacha tore his eyes away from James’ face to look at it. Objectively, it was a good photograph, at least as far as Sacha could tell. It wasn’t the photograph that worried him, it was what it suddenly occurred to him that James could do with it.

“Please. Please don’t show anyone.”

“Don’t show anyone?” James snatched back his phone and thrust it into his pocket. “I’m going to show everyone.”

“Don’t tell him. Uh…um….D…Dad. Don’t tell….”

Sacha suddenly found himself backed against a wall with James’s fist bunched in the flimsy material at his throat. “Don’t call him that. If I ever hear that word come out of your filthy mouth again I’ll break your neck you dirty little whore.”

“Wh…what word?”

“He’s not your dad. He’s my dad. Don’t you dare ever call him that.”

“But…but he said…..”

“I don’t care what he said. I’m saying. Don’t. Call. Him. Dad.”

“Okay.” Sacha swallowed. It was hard with James’ fist pressed into his throat. He was beginning to find it hard to breathe.

“Listen to me, you little shit. I won’t tell him what you are, what a filthy little pervert he’s taken into his home IF you’re a good boy and do exactly what you’re told, right?”

Sacha swallowed and nodded.

“You come when I call; you do exactly what I tell you to without question and you talk to anyone at all. Understand?”

“I…. Why? Why can’t I talk to anyone?”

“Because if you do I’ll show Dad the photo. Do you really think he’d let you stay here if he knew? Do you think he’d even look at you?”

“I…. No,” he whispered, tears forcing themselves out despite his struggles to keep them inside.

“Aw. Is the poor little girly upset? I’m sorry.” James stepped back and let go of Sacha. Sacha hugged himself and cringed against the wall. James dusted him off. “Don’t cry, baby. Just be good, keep out of my way and do what you’re told and everything will be find.”

“Why?” Sacha choked out. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Are you kidding? Before you left we were happy, we were a family. Then you ran away and suddenly none of us mattered anymore. All Mum and Dad cared about was you.”

“I didn’t run away.”

“Shut up. You went away. You weren’t here. Everyone wanted you back and they didn’t give a damn that I was still here. Mum drove herself into an early grave looking for you and when she went, Dad sent me away. No one wanted me. No one cared. Because all they cared about was you.”

“I…I’m sorry. It…it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know. I didn’t want…,”

“I don’t care what you want. I don’t care whether it was your fault or not. Don’t you understand? I had a shitty life. It was your fault. End of. And now I’m going to make you pay. Do you understand?”

Sacha nodded and James backhanded him. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sacha cried, pressing his hand against his cheek where James had struck him.

“Good. Now get out of those clothes. The thought of it makes me sick.”

Numbly, Sacha watched James across the room. Just before he reached the door he turned. “Oh, and if Lacey asks, I apologised to you, right?”

“Am I…am I allowed to speak to her?”

James gave him an odd look and a cruel smile crawled over his face. “You took me literally, didn’t you? Great. Yeah, you can speak to her, but only to say what I tell you to say. No casual chatting, right.”

Sacha nodded, then, scared he would get hit again, said “Yes.”

“Good boy,” James said and disappeared, closing the door behind him.

Sacha remained frozen, staring at the door long after it was closed. He was numb, shocked. It was too much. He couldn’t take any more. Slowly stripping off his clothes as he walked, Sacha dragged himself to the bedroom and crawled into bed. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling until the pain crystallized, shattered and disappeared, along with every hope and dream he’d clung to, every positive thought he’d had about himself. He was left with nothing. He was nothing. The person who used to be Alex Prosser had died long ago and now, the person who used to be Sacha died too, crumbling to dust and leaving only an empty shell, crumbling around the edges.